


The Hanged Man

by Lucius Parhelion (Parhelion)



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1930s, Detective Noir, Historical, M/M, Manhattan, Southern California
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-01
Updated: 2007-05-01
Packaged: 2018-12-02 14:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11511312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parhelion/pseuds/Lucius%20Parhelion
Summary: Ray's supposed to be enjoying his California retirement from the shadier side of speakeasy life. But his former troubles still haunt him even before his old pal Charlie, once of the Bureau and a certain Manhattan pansy club, decides to visit the seaside.





	The Hanged Man

I

Well before he could hear the music, Ray could feel its beat. But even after the notes became clear, crowd noises drowned out most of the melody. Ray had slipped through the Grand Palace Ballroom's side entrance and walked all the way down a concrete-floored corridor before he could tell that the band was playing some tune from a Broadway show that he'd seen back in '27. Wasn't this song called the Varsity Drag? So late on a Saturday night, this far into a dance marathon, playing a half-assed Charleston variation struck him as kind of cruel. But who was he to judge? He sure wasn't Al Leverett, the manager of this place, the guy who served as both relief judge and swing-shift master-of-ceremonies.

Leverett was out on the floor, checking the contestants, when Ray entered through the door beneath the paying seats and waved a hand in the air. Seeing him, Leverett waved back and then made his way towards the base of the bleachers through the couples on the dance floor. They were all dancing as slowly as they could when stuck with this lively a tune, so Leverett didn't have much ducking and weaving to do. He got over next to Ray and immediately turned to look back at the couples. Leverett took his refereeing seriously.

"Hello, Ray. How you doin' this evening?" Leverett asked without so much as a glance in Ray's direction. Then he wiped his forehead with a red silk handkerchief that he'd produced from his dinner jacket's pocket. The bright lights over the dance floor always made Leverett sweat. Any heat made him sweat, and so did any sunshine, woman, or proper suit coat, but none of that was his fault. Ray always tried to ignore how Leverett gleamed.

"I'm great, thanks." Ray leaned close to Leverett and asked, without shifting his own gaze from the dance floor, "Do you have my gun?" He'd kept his voice down. Even if there wasn't much of a chance that he would be heard over the sound of a dance band sprinting hard about fifteen feet away, he still didn't need to share his business with everyone.

Leverett also leaned in close before he said, "Yup. If you wait until the end of this piece, they'll be up to the fifteen-minute break. I got it in my office, and I'll pull it out for you then."

"Okay. Swell." They both fell silent and watched the dancers again. Lots of the couples were losing the beat now. Three pairs were weaving. One guy and gal looked to Ray to be goners if the Varsity didn't stop dragging real soon. Everyone seemed to be slowing to the point where the dance was a kind of quick, rhythmic shuffle, not a varsity.

Apparently Leverett thought so, too. He went back out onto the floor and started handing out warnings. Most of the dancers sped up, but two pairs gave in altogether. A fellow started arguing with Leverett, but his date pulled him off the floor before the bouncer, currently lounging next to the band's blonde canary, had to be called in. When they went by him on their way out, Ray noticed the girl was trying not to cry.

Leverett made his way back to Ray. "There, that's done. Honestly, you'd think no one wanted to win the two bucks for dancin' the sprint number right. It's not like I have to pay out extra prizes."

"Looks like they're not doing so good."

"It's called a dance marathon for a reason, Ray. Heck, this is only the third week. You wait until next week when the break goes down to ten minutes." Ray didn't say anything in response, but Leverett continued, tone a little defensive, "There's a slump on, after all."

"None of my business." Ray made sure the words were flat. After all, this wasn't his business. Even now, in '35, there sure as hell was still a slump on. Even here, in a nice California beach town like San Juan Patamos, folks did what they thought they had to in order to survive.

The music, fast and cheerful, ended. A few members of the crowd of tourists in the bleachers clapped, but most chatted with each other and ate their popcorn and candy as they watched the remaining dancers stumble, stagger, and limp off the floor for their once-an-hour break. Over at the bandstands, the musicians stood up and shifted around. They'd be here most of the night, too. Some of them stretched. A couple of them swapped flasks. The trombone player cleared his spit valve. Standing, the canary yawned behind the back of her hand before she stepped up to the microphone stand and nodded at the piano player, ready to sing a song that might keep everyone interested during the interval.

Leverett returned before the dance music started up again, reappearing with a package wrapped in brown butcher paper and tied up with string. "Here you go. Nifty piece: just needed that job you wanted done and a little work on the slide."

"Thanks, Al." Ray pulled out his billfold.

"No, no." Leverett waved the offer of money away. "I like to keep my hand in. That Colt of yours is a beauty. Pretty inset on the grip, kind of rare on a Pocket Hammerless. You'll have to tell me where you got her someday."

"I'll do that." Ray pocketed his billfold and tucked the package under one arm before shaking Leverett's hand.

"See you around. I have to get back to these monkeys." Leverett walked away towards the master-of-ceremonies' stand, pausing on the way to warn another couple who were slow getting back onto the floor.

Ray eased back out through the door under the bleachers. On the way to the side entrance he paused beneath a bare bulb lighting the concrete floor and checked his billfold. Damn. It was just as well that Leverett had done his amateur gunsmithing for free. Ray had less cash on him than he'd thought he had. The fin that he'd given the bandleader to make the first couple of numbers after the break nice and easy had been his last one.

He considered for a moment, and then shrugged and kept going. The music was almost inaudible again, quieter than the crowd. The beat stayed slow, though, as Ray went out through the door into the cool, seaside air, and headed off the pier.

Once back on Oceanside Road, Ray paused at the mouth of the alley between Henry's Oyster Shack and the new place that sold seashell portraits and salt-water taffy before he decided to take the shortcut. Ducking down the alley would let him walk the back streets home and avoid the crowds along the shore. He had a chore to take care of first, though.

Stepping a few feet into the shadows, he worked off the string and tore open the brown paper wrapped around his gun, checked the Colt quickly, and then dropped it into his jacket pocket. The sag was obvious, but at least the gun wasn't visible. He wadded up the wrappings and string around the left-over part from the revolver, and dumped it all into a trash can. Part of his attention was still on putting the lid back on the can when he was interrupted. Someone deeper in the shadows lit a match.

The scratch and flare were enough warning for Ray to step to one side and get the oyster shack's blue stucco behind him as he raised his fists. Those seconds spent preparing might have helped with a drunken tourist or a sailor looking to scare him into a handout. They didn't ease the shock he felt upon seeing well-known, thin features, a stray lock of hair that memory told him was pale blond, and the brim of a familiar fedora, in the match's brief light.

Charlie was lighting a cigarette held between his lips, his free hand cupped to shelter the flame. Then, with an easy gesture, he waved the match out, and darkness returned. Ray could see the brightening red of the now-lit tip as it was drawn. He knew Charlie would take about three puffs before he tossed the cigarette down onto the stained asphalt of the alley and crushed it out. Years back, when Ray had asked about his odd way of handling a smoke, Charlie had told him that the smell from too much tobacco gave a fellow away to anyone with a keen nose.

"Good evening, Ray," Charlie said. His voice would still have done a radio announcer proud.

"Charlie." The Colt seemed to weigh down Ray's jacket pocket. "What's the Bureau of Investigation doing in town?"

"Not the Bureau, only me. This is a solo flight." There was a pause, a brightening of the cigarette's tip, and a dying away. "As to what I'm doing? I'm here to see you, of course." Sure enough, after a second flare and fade, Ray saw the red point of light drop and disappear. In the renewed dark, Charlie asked, "What's with the gun, Ray?"

Hell. Even more trouble. This entire day had been one pain in the ass after another. Ray found he was shaking his head. Maybe he should have paid more attention to what the fortune teller had predicted this morning

II

The extended forefinger with its long, painted nail swept back and forth across the tarot cards, hesitating before finally falling to tap upon the gilt-edged depiction of a man hanging upside down from a tree.

"Uh-oh. That's not good," Joseph said.

"Nah," Ray agreed. "Looks like something important is stuck."

As they watched, her hand jerked up, and moved across the cards once more. When her forefinger came down on a card again, it once more tapped the hanged man.

"What was that, four times in a row?" Ray asked.

"I count five," Joseph said. "Long odds against that many picks being by chance."

Shaking his head, Ray said, "All right, enough already. Go ahead and pull the plug on Granny." He turned towards the middle-aged woman counting out nickels behind the grillwork of the cashier's cage, and called out, "Mona, did I leave my toolbox in there?"

"You certainly did," she called back. "If you'll wait just a second, I'll bring it over to you."

Ray turned back in time to see the moving finger tap and not move on. Grandma's carved, wooden head stopped nodding, the chest stilled, and the red light died away within her crystal ball. Scooping the printed fortunes from the dispenser slot in the "Grandmother's Fortunes" machine, he handed the cards to Joseph, who'd just gotten up off the tiled floor of the penny arcade.

Joseph read the top card. "I'm going on a long trip. There, I will meet someone dark and exotic."

"You're going to bring back some breakfast from Dink's and get me a Danish pastry. I'm betting the dark and exotic someone you'll meet there is Mona, who's going along to make sure you're back here in a half-hour."

"It had better be me that he meets," said Mona as she passed the tool kit over. She was smiling as she said it, though. Mona was still a looker and she knew it, especially for a dame as old and as respectable as she was.

Ray leaned over, opened the kit, and dug around for a screwdriver, in part so he didn't have to see them make goo-goo eyes at each other. They did that an awful lot, given that they'd been hitched about forever. But the mush was better than battling would have been, even if mush made Ray both grumpy and wistful. He said, "Don't forget to—"

"—lock up behind us," they chorused. He waved a hand at them and got down on the floor to open the access panel at the back of Granny's cabinet. He and Joseph had swung the machine away from the wall after the penny arcade closed last night, just in case first aid was needed. And, after five taps of the wooden finger on the same tarot card this morning, following the seven taps last night, Ray had no doubt it was time to play doctor.

To tell the truth, he found working on the intricate network of gears, cams, and rods inside the machine soothing. A good forty-five passed before he realized that his employees were late. Maybe five more minutes went by before he gave up on arguing himself out of going to see what was wrong. Some instincts couldn't be stamped out by a mere three years of peace and quiet.

He hadn't even reached the front door, though, before it opened and they piled back into the penny arcade. One look at the expressions on their faces had him swallowing the wise-guy crack and asking them instead, "What happened?" in a tone he didn't use much these days.

There was a pause, and then Joseph spoke first. "Master Alistair was over at Dink's and he started in on Mona again about her family selling him the coast acreage."

Master Alistair was boss of a bunch of bananas who owned a big stretch of property north of town, an ex-ranch where the crazies were said to run around in the all-together while performing screwy rites that they claimed were Egyptian. None of this was anything new for San Juan Patamos, which had housed religious cuckoos from the spiritualists on down, but Ray was pretty sure that Alistair's crowd was something extra-special. He'd recently noticed new folks in town filled with the kind of pep and vim that he'd seen a lot back in Manhattan before he moved west to this seaside burg. Although Ray would have sworn that the local climate was warm for that kind of trouble, someone was making it snow.

Now, Mona's family was old in the area but too proud to screw around with dope. Their lean pockets had gotten even skinnier two years ago when a county bank had sunk during the crisis of '33, taking a lot of folk's savings, including Mona's and Joseph's, down with it. But her family still owned some acres next to Alistair's ex-ranch that included the only good inlet in the county north of the municipal wharf. Back during Prohibition, Ray might have looked over that inlet with an eye to fast yachts running quality bootleg, so he didn't believe that Master Alistair wanted the inlet for Lord Osiris, whatever the guy claimed.

In any case, Mona's family was stalling on selling and the Rev. Master was getting antsy. Everybody in town knew that Mona played councilor for those of her relatives who were trying to make decisions, and it seemed like the Master had finally figured that out, too.

"Did he try leaning on you?" Ray asked.

"He tried," Joseph said. His expression was sheepish.

At the same time Mona said, "Joseph hit him." Her look at her husband was mixed from about one part annoyance to one part admiration and two parts alarm. Back before the slump Joseph had been a draftsman, good enough to instruct over at the Polytechnic in Santa Maria, and he was a lot more at home with a slide rule than with his fists. Master Alistair must have leaned really hard and be feeling pretty frustrated right now as a result. He wouldn't have liked the mouthful of knucks, either.

"I'd better talk with the Reverend Master," Ray said. Now the alarm was directed at him, from both Mona's and Joseph's directions. He didn't know why: he'd kept his voice calm. "What?"

"You've already told Alistair to his face how you feel about him," Mona said. "He wasn't particularly pleased. And he and his fellow worshippers spend a lot of money in this town. So do you, but I still wouldn't force Sheriff Williams to choose between the pair of you, especially since Vera Williams has gotten interested in the so-called secrets of Egypt." Joseph was sharp, but Mona was sharper.

Ray shrugged. "Yeah, well, I have a business to run, here. And I can't do that if he's bothering my employees all the time." This was the only reason Ray was sticking his nose into this mess. It wasn't like he was falling back into old habits or anything.

Mona kept talking: no surprise there. "Some of the deputy sheriffs—" The ones she wasn't related to, she meant "—already think your background might be a trifle dubious."

At least the local cops weren't all a bunch of morons. Ray shrugged again. "Maybe they should do their jobs, then, so I don't have to." He spread his hands out and tried to seem harmless, which probably didn't work too well. "Look. I'll just tell Mister Master to leave us alone. I won't lay a hand on him, I swear." He grinned, clenched one fist, and faked an upper-cut. "We have Joseph for that."

Joseph tried not to look pleased and failed. Mona didn't even try not to roll her eyes. But she was also sharp enough not to waste effort on a lost cause. "Well, for heaven's sake, be careful."

"I'm always careful." Those words, he meant. After one last, sharp look and one considering stare, the pair of them let the matter lie and got back to work.

Once they got going, Ray wasn't really needed. His full-time employees might be older and a bit slower than the local kids who staffed most of the summer attractions along the waterfront, but they were also much better workers, which is why they occupied the rent-free apartment on the floor above the arcade rather than some cute kid's family. Aside from the bookkeeping – which Ray really should farm out to a professional, even if the best local accountant was the same guy who did Alistair's books – he was only playing at running this place.

Maybe if Ray stopped hiring such smart cookies, he wouldn't care so much about what happened to them after hours. But worrying about that right now was like locking the doors after the society types with a snootful were already inside the nightclub. With a shake of his head, Ray got up, grabbed his coat and hat from the back room, and headed out to get his own Danish pastry at Dink's.

The diner was busy, even though lunch was still a couple of hours away. As much as any business could be on a side street this close to the pier, Dink's was a local joint. Summer people weren't turned away, but they were made aware that their presence was tolerated rather than welcomed. Ray knew enough about how folks worked not to be surprised that this attitude made Dink's one of the most popular tourist destinations in town.

A couple of rubes were perched on stools at the counter right now, gaping at Alistair, who was holding court in a back booth with a porterhouse pressed to his eye. He was worth gaping at. His other eye was outlined with the kind of mascara vamps had worn a few years ago, and his long beard was tied up with gold string into a black bundle that hung low from his chin. Two of his followers, both of the young and pretty sort, kept him company. They all wore the long, embroidered linen robes that made them stand out even in a beach town.

Ray slid into the neighboring booth – all the booths around Alistair were empty – and waited to be noticed by the waitress. She came over, smiled at him, and poured him some coffee. He doctored it with cream and sugar and waited some more.

Sure enough, Alistair wasn't the kind of fellow who could stand to be ignored for long. "Ray, is it?" 

Making a show of turning around, Ray said, "Hello, Alistair. What's with the eye?" He was pleased to see Master Alistair had to tilt his chin up a little to meet Ray's gaze. Being both burley and over six feet had often saved Ray trouble in the old days. Maybe his height would still help him now.

"You're not amusing. Neither is Joseph McIntyre."

"He's not paid to be amusing. He's paid to work. And he and Mona have a tough time doing that with you getting between them and the business."

"Business is exactly what I was trying to discuss when McIntyre decided to be irrational."

"He was irrational, huh?" Ray made a show of looking around. "Then how come you're the one with no neighbors left?"

"I enjoy privacy." Alistair's stare was flat in a way that Ray knew from experience might signal danger.

Startled, Ray knew better than to back down. "You're not the only one. Mona also likes privacy, and so does her family. How about you let them enjoy some?"

"How about your keeping to your own affairs?"

Ray smiled, and Alistair's eyes narrowed very slightly. The dolls with him flinched a little even though that wasn't a result Ray had been after. "I guess I'm making this my business."

At least it took a second for Alistair to recover enough to intone, "Heathen. The Lord Osiris takes note." Getting up, he said, "Come along, my acolytes," rearranged his robes, and swept from the room. He hadn't tipped.

Ray wasn't fooled. If Master Alistair was only a would-be Egyptian priest, he could've been overlooked as some nut showing off. But Ray was crossing a guy who was setting up a scheme. He'd better watch his back. He'd also better go and get his gun.

Hell. He'd been hoping that Leverett would be interested enough, after their other discussions and fixing Ray's gun, to make an offer on the Colt. Ray hadn't come to this town to be anything other than a small businessman, one of the respectable kind for a change. Three years of living like some kind of monk, and now this.

"More coffee?"

"No, just a cherry Danish pastry, thanks. I got to get back before the arcade opens."

"Say hello to Joseph and Mona, then." The waitress dimpled. "Nice to see Joseph still has his aim. He always did well back at San Juan High, pitching for the Seagulls."

Why had Ray ever thought that small town life would be peaceful?

III

Why had Ray ever thought this alley shortcut would be faster? He told Charlie, "I was having the Colt worked on."

He'd expected that Charlie would bring up the sore topic of firearms registration, but instead he said, "I'm glad you find life here peaceful enough that you can have your gun repaired."

"Owning a penny arcade in San Juan Potosi's not much like managing a private club in Manhattan."

"Especially a club that served high-quality bootleg."

There was no sense in arguing. He'd known Charlie as a patron long before he'd known him as a Special Agent. "As I remember, you liked the bourbon we served at Club Priory."

"Hypocritical, I know," Charlie almost sighed. "And hard on my sparse inheritance, to boot."

"Look, if you want to talk about your sins in the dark, I can walk you over to Father Silva's confessional at Star of the Sea."

"No, it's your sins that I'm interested in." Ray tensed. "Or rather, your lack thereof." Ray relaxed a little, puzzled. Charlie continued, "I understand you've been a very good boy these past few years. No wine, women, or song. No expensive cars, no high-class restaurants, no fancy evening suits. No rings on your fingers, no belles on your toes. Not a whisper of scandal about anything but your charming features."

Funny fellow: Ray's face was even more bashed around than most of the local fishermen's. "You've been snooping."

"That was my job, remember?" There was a pause, and Charlie asked, voice low and intense, "Do you still feel guilty about 'Grip' Miller's death? Don't."

"What the hell?" Ray asked. He knew the words were heated, but right now he didn't care. "What are you trying to get me to admit, here?"

"Nothing. You probably – certainly – won't believe me, but nothing."

Ray snorted. There was no statute of limitation on murder, and Ray's former boss, Ira "Grip" Miller, had been found back in '32 bobbing down the Hudson with three bullet holes in him.

When Charlie spoke, his tone was casual again. "I've quit the Bureau, you know."

Uh-huh. Ray believed him, sure.

He'd swear from the voice that Charlie was smiling when he added, "Somehow, I don't feel that you believe me. Now, exactly how can I persuade you of my bona fides?"

"You can't, so don't even—" It was Ray's own fault. He'd forgotten how Charlie liked to leap at a challenge. Charlie had his hand cupping Ray's groin before Ray could finish asking, "What the hell?" again.

"About what you think."

Ray took a deep breath and let it out. "In maybe ten seconds you're going to lose that hand of yours."

"In maybe ten seconds my point will be made. Not an officially endorsed behavior, I hope you'll agree."

The ten seconds must not be up yet. Charlie's hand wasn't moving. But it was warm and firm through the serge, and Ray's cock had been without any friendly visitors for quite a while. Much more of this, and he'd be getting hard. "No one's taking my word against yours. So, you're not proving anything with this cute little maneuver except that you can always get a job with Vice, lurking around the public johns and cultivating the pansies, if you even get tired of the federal payroll."

"Still as stubborn as I remember." There was laughter in Charlie's voice.

Ray closed his eyes. They'd stayed good friends back in Manhattan even after Ray had figured out his frequent patron was some kind of out-of-town cop. After all, Ray had decided, it wasn't like Charlie was going to tell his bosses about spending all those evenings at a nightclub. Not at a pansy club, at least. Not when he'd been screwing the club's master-of-ceremonies. Of course, cops had been known to lie about what they'd been doing before the cuffs came out.

Still, Charlie and Ray had spent some fun hours parked at ringside tables together, watching Robin, the club's master-of-ceremonies, prance around while he wisecracked the customers and introduced the acts. Then the club would close, Ray would supervise locking up and counting down the tills, and Charlie and Robin would go off to do whatever they did together...

Damn, Charlie's grip felt good. "Look, asshole, you're still not convincing me. Move the hand, would you?"

Once asked rather than threatened, Charlie moved the hand. Typical. His slapping Ray gently on the upper arm after finishing up his grope maneuver was typical, too. He was exactly the kind of hidden flower who'd made running the Club Priory for Grip such a pain. You'd never know to look at him that he liked giving it to other guys up the ass. He said, "You, of all men, shouldn't blame me for resigning as an Agent. I'm glad you got out first, though. You were too much of a gentleman for the Sicilians, and too gentle a man for the Boys from Brooklyn."

"Charlie, is there something special you want, here?" Grope or no grope, Ray wasn't dumb enough to use the best and easiest argument against Charlie's opinion of him. "And you'd better not make me sorry for asking that question."

He heard Charlie laugh. Ray tried to hold back his own reluctant smile, even if it was too dark to see, but he failed.

Charlie said, "Yes and no. Do we have to continue this conversation in an alley?"

"I was heading home. You're the one who was prowling around like a hot watch salesman with a back pocket full of eight-pagers."

"Don't remind me. I only wanted to get through our first words together with my teeth intact."

"Hey, what would I be doing to your teeth? I'm gentle, remember? Not that you should be testing that notion by grabbing my crotch, by the way." Charlie laughed again, and Ray shook his head. "Forget about it. Come on, we'll go over to Dink's Diner and talk," Ray snorted, "where it's nice and light, and I can see your hands."

"That might be safer than around here, yes."

They doubled back to Oceanside Street and headed past the pier and the Grand Palace Ballroom. A couple of blocks ahead of them the night was bright with the brilliant lights of the boardwalk, the roller coaster, and the carrousel. To their right, the waves were crashing on the beach, loud with the incoming tide but shadowed and cool. An offshore breeze was holding the fog back. The row of palms along the sidewalk was silhouetted by a full moon. Somewhere out on the sand, somebody was probably finding out why whoopee was better made far away from a million tons of grit, even when the cops didn't choose to interrupt the action. To their left, many of the shorefront establishments were open late, shining with the neon that edged their wildly fake Moorish facades and loud with the customers coming and going. Lots of visitors were still strolling around, laughing, drinking, having a good time, and trying not to spend money. It was the job of Ray's neighbors to make sure the tourists failed in their good intentions.

As for Ray, he was reminding himself of all the reasons to stay away from one of the few guys he'd ever liked since about five minutes after they met. Not that their friendship was all that rare: cops and – businessmen – knew lots more about each other than civilians did. From time to time, friendships had to happen. Most times, though, something solved the problem by reminding everyone involved what "natural enemy" meant, just like it had with Charlie and Ray.

Except Charlie was back. He was sauntering alongside Ray with his hat tilted to a jaunty angle, probably enjoying the nice summer night. Like a simp, Ray found that he wanted to point out the local sights, beat his gums a little, maybe tell a joke or two. He kept quiet instead.

Dink's was busy, but they'd kept a table free for locals like they always did. These days, Ray was included under that heading, so he and Charlie were seated in a corner with their only neighbors being some college kids who'd had too much to drink and were talking tattoos.

Charlie fished a menu out of the metal holder, glanced at it, and said to the waitress – still the same gal, she must be getting tired – "The blue-plate special and coffee, please."

Ray told her, "I'll have a coke and a plate of chicken chow-mein." The short-order cook made good Chinese food, probably because he was Chinaman himself.

She gave a curious look at the newcomer, but was too busy to ask questions. After she'd bustled off, Charlie took out his wallet from his inside suit coat pocket and started fishing around in it. He pulled out an envelope and passed it across. "I'd thought you might be a difficult sell."

Ray opened up the envelope and took out the piece of paper inside. It was a carbon copy of Charlie's letter of resignation, with a letter of reply clipped to it. Seemingly Charlie's old boss, Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, was sad to see him go. "Does this guy get a nickel for every extra syllable he uses?"

"No."

"Nice to see you contributed to 'our nation's betterment.'"

Charlie only hoisted his eyebrows. Ray folded the letter back into its envelope, passed it across, and said, "You could have shown this to me back in the alley."

Charlie had the nerve to smirk and say, "It was a little dark for that."

Ray used the napkin holder as cover for giving him a gesture from the old neighborhood.

"Why, Ray." For a moment, Charlie sounded exactly like his former flame Robin. "I had no idea. This is so sudden: you'll have to give me a little time to consider."

Rolling his eyes up, Ray told the tin tiles of the ceiling, "They all think they're comedians. Every single one of them."

"I remember your delicate wit from the Old Country, yes." Charlie still heckled with a straight face, Ray noted.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm real funny." Damn. Ray hadn't meant to actually say that. He opened his mouth and then closed it again.

The problem was, Ray had spent the past couple of years hanging around this seaside burg, not sure where he wanted to go next, stuck with too much time to think over stuff he'd thought was obvious before, like his former love life. So, he couldn't act as if he didn't know what he and Charlie were really talking about without lying. Ray was a lousy liar.

Charlie's face had gone very still, Ray realized. He was waiting. Slowly, Ray shrugged and then said, "In fact, I'm hilarious." Even to his own ears, his tone was flat.

Before Charlie could come up with a reply, the waitress brought their food. Charlie picked up his fork and tried the special – pork chops and sauerkraut – and then nodded his approval. "Good."

"Good the food, or good what I said?" They hadn't really been talking about being funny. At least, not that kind of funny. More like what a lady visiting from Baltimore had called "a little bit funny," when she'd been gossiping with his Aunt Sarah about her synagogue's cantor, and young Ray had been hiding behind the parlor sofa.

Tilting his chin down a little, Charlie looked like he was hiding a smile. "I was discussing both the food and your comment, as a matter of fact." He stopped trying to hide and his lips curved up, a good look for him. "You're still the same when it comes to being on the up-and-up, I see." This time he waggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx. "You always were a straight-shooter for a supposed club manager."

Ray wanted to lunge across the table and do something stupid. Instead he asked, "Aren't you forgetting a few things? Like, what happened with Robin and Grip?"

That left them staring at each other again, but Ray didn't deceive himself that the quiet was anything but a break in this conversational marathon. Seated next to some Joe College who thought he might look good with his current girlfriend's name permanently inked onto his shoulder didn't strike Ray as the best place to have such a chat, but they seemed to be having it anyhow. Charlie cleared his throat.

Life had other ideas, though. Just then, as if cued by Charlie's noise, one of the attendants from the wax museum next door to Ray's joint came hustling into the diner. He started talking to the waitress at the register, and she pointed towards the back where the two of them were sitting. With an instinct common to both their former professions, Ray and Charlie were already looking towards the register when the kid hollered, "Hey, Ray! There's trouble over at your place!"

"What?"

"I dunno all of it. A couple of fellows got out of hand, though. And someone shot off a gun."

IV

Ray dumped three bucks on the table to cover the bill, which was one hell of a big tip, but he didn't want to hang around waiting for change. He didn't waste time arguing when Charlie piled out of the booth after him, either. They both exited quickly enough that no tourist who wanted to come along for a look-see could block their way in the narrow aisle between the booths and the counter. Charging out the diner's door fast enough to make the bells jangle rather than ring, they headed to Oceanside and then down Oceanside towards Ray's arcade.

The back of Ray's mind noted that Charlie wasn't glancing towards him for directions but concentrating on dodging through the crowd. He sure as hell knew where the arcade was. He'd been snooping, all right.

As the two of them got close, they were almost mowed down by a fellow whose trousers had one leg chewed up, a guy who was half-running and half-limping in the other direction. Ray lunged at him but was blocked by some sailor on leave who seemed to think the grab was fun and games. Charlie grabbed the gob in turn and twisted him to one side; fortunately, the sailor's date was the kind of gal who deserved the handle "frail." Her idea of helping her beau was to throw her hands over her mouth and let her eyes get big instead of trying to mess with Charlie. Ray turned and saw that his real prey was long gone.

"You want this genius?" Charlie asked, tightening the two-handed grip he had on the sailor's arm and wrist.

"Nah. Get rid of him."

Charlie shoved the guy towards the arms of his date – she stepped aside and let him lurch into a pair of workmen who'd probably keep him busy – and he and Ray got going again.

When they arrived at the arcade, everything was over but showing the newsreel. The crowd outside was swirling around, its members confusing each other about what exactly they hadn't seen. Inside, some of the customers were clustered together, talking loudly and gesturing. A few of them, though, had taken advantage of no lines to get to their favorite machines. Ray saw male backs at most of the spicier mutoscopes, elbows moving back and forth as they cranked away, watching the flip-cards. No one was waiting outside the cashier's cage for change, though. That was strange.

Inside the cage, Mona was sitting on her stool with her fingers knitted together and her lips pressed thin. Ray looked at her, turned to look at the now pitted paint and plaster to one side of the entrance archway, and said, "You used that damned pump shotgun, didn't you? What if someone had gotten hurt?"

"Yes, I used it." She sounded prim. Hah. "Two men came in with sledgehammers, got in line, came up to the cage, and threatened to smash the machines before they started in on the customers. They were just about to begin with the crane." She gestured. The lacquered wood on the side of the crane machine by the archway was chewed up but intact. The machine's side window was cracked and frosted, though, and two sledgehammers were lying on the floor in front of the machine. "They were being given a wide berth by the patrons, probably because of their tools, and I do know how to aim. I missed everyone, including, for the most part, both of them."

Ray shook his head before saying to Charlie, "Loaded with rock-salt shells. They'll be hurting for a while. But she's distantly related to two of the county commissioners so she gets away with this cra— stuff."

"I see." To someone who didn't know him, the words might sound flat. Ray could tell Charlie was trying not to laugh, and gave him a dirty look.

Turning back to Mona, Ray said, "We saw one guy go by. Where's the other?"

Now she didn't look so much prim as worried. "Joseph chased him. They both headed off towards the boardwalk."

Ray and Charlie looked at each other, and then Charlie went back out the doorway like a shot. He was the faster of the two of them. Ray told Mona, "Go on back and telephone the sheriff's office. And have a slug from the bottle of brandy that I hid there while you're at it."

For once not arguing, she got down off her stool and opened the cage door. Ray let her squeeze by, took her place, and re-locked the door. As she click-clacked in her high heels past the skee-ball machines and toward the back room, he realized that she hadn't had to ask exactly where he'd hidden the booze, not really a surprise.

Once he'd taken over from Mona, a line quickly formed at the cage's grill of folks wanting change, also no surprise. Lots of folks would be wary of a cashier who'd jammed the barrel of a shotgun through her grill and let fly. In fact, the cage smelled of discharged gun. Reaching down, Ray gingerly tilted the shotgun so that it was leaning away from him before he slid four nickels and five pennies through the slot in exchange for two bits.

In five minutes, Mona was back. "Put an 'out of order' sign on the crane," Ray told her. In fifteen minutes, Charlie and Joseph came back together. The sheriffs still hadn't arrived.

Mona looked up from taping the sign up and hurried over to Joseph, holding him out at arm's length, probably to check for property damage, before giving him a rare, public hug. Charlie came over to the cage and asked, "Can I have ten dollars' worth of change? I'd like it all in pennies, please."

"Wisenheimer," Ray retorted. "No good?"

Charlie shook his head. "No. He'd ducked into The Trip to Hades ride before I showed up, and your man Joseph couldn't cover both exits by himself. After I joined him, we stayed for a bit to see if your villain would come out with the other ride-goers, but no such luck."

Mona came over and rapped on the cage door. Again, Ray swapped places with her, and then went over to Joseph.

"Sorry, Ray," Joseph said.

"What the hell are you apologizing for? You aren't the one who tried to ventilate the crane machine." Ray shrugged. "Look, just get the sledgehammers out of the way, talk to the cops when they show, and be extra careful about setting the alarms tonight. Maybe you should call around and get one or two of Mona's cousins to stay over here. We'll fix the crane tomorrow when we finish up with the fortune machine. Right now, I'm going to finish up my chat with my old pal Charlie, here." He jerked a thumb. "But I'll be at home, so you can find me if you need me."

Joseph gave Charlie a curious look but held his peace. "Right. Good night, then."

"You too." Ray smiled sourly. "Thanks to One-Gun Mona, the night's already better than it might have been."

That crack was enough to win a grin from Joseph, and he waved cheerfully when Ray and Charlie went out the door. About a hundred yards down the sidewalk, Ray saw a deputy sheriff coming in the other direction, but he didn't turn around. He'd had quite enough for one day without adding cops to the mix.

"Are we going past the pier again?" Charlie asked.

"Try going anywhere in this town without passing the pier sooner or later," Ray said. "I'm on the edge of the bluff, the part where it curves around by the town wharf. The more respectable folks don't like the lights and the noise drifting up late at night since the entertainment district went in, so I got my place cheap."

"I'm also not here to audit your finances," Charlie said, his voice amused.

"You never did tell me what you were here for," Ray replied. "Aside from chatting about my lack of sins, that is."

Charlie kept quiet as they walked past the pier again, through the alley where they'd first met that evening, down two quieter, darker streets off the ocean front, and up the wooden flights of stairs that snaked along the face of the sandstone bluff, providing a short-cut for the locals who lived up top and wanted to get to the beach.

Ray's place was a small, cedar-shingled bungalow that he'd heard from his butcher had once been part of the bigger estate next door. The house only had five rooms and a bath, but it also came with a ragged patch of grass and trees out back that stretched all the way to the cliff edge, a wrap-around porch, low stone walls marking out the property, and a location that was a fast walk from the arcade. Ray hadn't much cared what he got when he'd been buying, but now he kind of liked the place.

No one had monkeyed around with the lock. After opening the front door, Ray stepped in and turned on the hall light. Charlie followed him inside and hung up his hat and coat on the hat rack before looking around. "Nice, but you haven't done much with it."

Ray swallowed a comment about interior decorating, shrugged, and went into the living room, leaving Charlie to follow or not as he chose. Instead Charlie went into the kitchen. "Do you have anything to drink?"

"Beer, milk, and orange juice are in the refrigerator," Ray called back. He didn't waste time telling Charlie to help himself but finished checking the rest of the place for lurkers, instead. That didn't take long. When Charlie came back into the living room with his beer, Ray had already untied his shoe-laces, kicked off his wing-tips, and propped up his feet on the battered old leather ottoman.

Charlie sat down on the couch, worked the ceramic cork loose from its wire nest, and drank from the beer bottle. "Local brewery?" he asked after the first swig.

"Yeah, but they're probably going to go out of business soon." He gave Charlie a minute alone with his suds and then asked, "Now are you going to tell me what you're doing here?"

After looking around, probably for a coaster, Charlie gave up and put the bottle down on the end table where it could add to the collection of rings on the finish. "I realized a few months back that I was only marking time with my life." Ray shot him a look, and Charlie, figuring Ray's meaning out easily, said, "The job? Sound and fury, signifying nothing. Not that I liked how matters were going in the Bureau, mind you, but that's neither here nor there. No, I realized that I hadn't done anything important with my life in about," his smile was both dry and a little grim, "three years."

Since Robin died, he meant. "Okay, so you decided you wanted to quit your job and run off to South America or wherever. What do I have to do with that?"

"Well, I was about to start telling you what you had to do with my great revelation earlier this evening when a couple of matters distracted me," Charlie said. "For one thing, there is your sudden problem with the kind of vandalism that seems to require guns." He made a cutting gesture with the edge of his palm. "Although I believe I understand that affair, and you apparently have it under control for the moment. No, the real red herring was the one you dragged across the trail at Dink's."

Yeah, he'd been afraid Charlie wouldn't let their conversation stay buried. Ray examined the wallpaper over his cabinet radio. You could see a faded patch in the pattern of little flowers where the previous owner had hung a picture. Maybe Ray should think about repainting his walls or something.

Ignoring his audience's seemingly drifting attention, Charlie kept going. "If we're truly going to talk, I think I'd better dispose of the more important distraction first." As calm as if he was requesting another beer, he asked, "So, Ray, would you like to fuck?"

V

Even Ray couldn't pretend to ignore Charlie's last question. "Smooth. Real smooth."

"I can hardly try draping an arm around your shoulder and then drifting a hand down your chest with you parked over there and me sitting over here. And if I tried feeding you a line, you'd laugh in my face." Charlie rolled his eyes. "I'd deserve your horse laugh, too."

Ray felt his eyes narrow. "So now I know why that grope in the alley."

"Direct evidence does tend to speed my decisions, yes." Charlie raised the hand that wasn't holding the beer and mimed cupping Ray's groin. "I could tell you were interested."

"Yeah? Like you said back there, I've been going dry for a while."

"And part of you seemed willing to quench your thirst with me." Charlie smiled. "Which doesn't invalidate my question, does it?"

Pulling his feet down from the ottoman, Ray propped his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands, trying to think. Charlie kept quiet; Ray could hear the swallow as he took another slug of Ray's beer. No wonder he'd wanted alcohol and not milk. For all that he looked cool, this conversation couldn't be easy. Ray looked up. "Back at the club, did Robin tell you?"

"Tell me what?" Charlie asked. Then he said, "Oh." His tone was bemused, which was good. If it had been sympathetic or amused, Ray would have walked out his own front door. Slowly, Charlie continued, "He gave you one—" His eyes narrowed very slightly as he watched Ray, and he changed the quantity smoothly "—a few of his friendly service calls, didn't he?"

"Yeah." Funny how easy the word was to get out.

"Well, I wasn't exactly keeping him, you know. He was his own man and could seduce whomever he liked. Did he get down his knees or bend pointedly over a dressing-room…?" Charlie shut his mouth and flinched. Seemed like someone else's tongue had finally gotten away from him this evening.

Taken aback, Ray stared at Charlie for a moment. Then he felt his lips twitch. Next, he laughed. "Right past smooth and on to su-ave," he managed to get out.

"You can go right past the pier and on to hell," Charlie said, but he wasn't getting much heat behind the words.

Ray laughed at him some more. Then he sobered up a little and said, "Robin's having played tenor sax for me doesn't mean that I'm doing the same for you."

Charlie raised his eyebrows. "Ask me nicely and I might be generous. But I never had you chalked up as the selfish type, the sort who won't return a favor."

"You're kidding." Ray swallowed. "You blow off guys? Since when does a fellow like you blow off guys?"

Studying Ray, Charlie asked, "So no males in your past but Robin, I assume?"

"Just kid stuff." Ray paused. "You're telling me that I don't know what I'm talking about."

"Here's your chance to broaden your horizons." Charlie looked wry. "I'll never tell."

Ray winced, but he knew Charlie's words had pressed the old bruise by mistake. He couldn't know about Grip, and what the Gerellos had said to Ray.

Anything was better than dancing along in the same mental rut for the millionth time. Ray had already spent too many long months on this marathon. So, he looked at Charlie, instead, who was patiently waiting. It was true, three years was a long time dry spell. And Ray had always wondered why Charlie went with pansies, given that he was a good-looking guy. Ray took a deep breath. To be honest, it was Ray who'd always thought that Charlie was a good-looking guy. So… "Fine, let's fuck."

Charlie got up, came over, and slapped Ray's shoulder. "Let's go, then."

That part was easy enough. After they got into the bedroom and Ray had turned on the bedside lamp, matters got tougher.

Ray looked at Charlie. "What now?"

"Well, you have your shoes off. It's a start."

"Yeah." Ray sat down on the embroidered linen coverlet. His aunt would have lectured him about being a slob. "Not much of a start."

"Nerves." Charlie sat down next to him and started working off his own shoes. "You're taking an active part, not just going along for the ride, which makes this as big an experience as when you first, oh, kiss a girl or shoot a gun." He caught the problem with his last example and winced.

Ray still got to heckle, though. "I'm gonna shoot my gun, here? Even I've heard of Sigmund Freud, college boy."

"Jesus H. Christ. You'd think I'd know better than to pick that particular comparison around you." Charlie's coat went neatly over the back of the ladder chair in the corner. He stopped, hands on his tie, to add quietly, "I've missed talking with someone both fast enough and blunt enough to call me on my slips."

Closing the bedside table drawer on the Colt, Ray asked, "What have they had you partnered with all these years, a fluffy little bunny?"

"No, but just about every other species in the zoo." Sitting down next to Ray, Charlie slung an arm around his shoulder and gave him a sideways squeeze, as if they were pals from the old neighborhood. "Are you still okay?"

Ray considered. Funny how familiar Charlie seemed when seated close like this, more like a cousin or a school pal than someone he'd hung around a nightclub with. On the other hand, something about Charlie also reminded Ray a little of Dolores diSalva, the girl he'd crushed on in the sixth grade. "You ever think of wearing an Alice-blue gown?"

"I'm not that kind of a homosexual." Charlie eyed him curiously, and then seemed to decide he was being heckled again.

"Fine by me." And Charlie's comeback was fine, too, which was kind of strange. Back in Manhattan, Ray used to tell himself all sorts of stories about the dames while Robin worked on his cock. You'd think he'd still want something a lot frillier than Charlie. But now that Ray had decided he might be a pansy himself, he didn't seem to need the window dressing any more. Maybe he'd been pretending all along.

Ray tried putting a palm on Charlie's chest, right next to where the vest buttons began, about where he'd have gone for a warm handful on one of his old girlfriends. This time Ray felt flat hardness, muscle shifting slightly as Charlie breathed. The chest was warm through the shirt, good to touch. Ray could feel his pulse speeding up, but that was only nerves. Still, he tried moving his hand around a little, stroking, feeling like a rube while he did it. Charlie tilted his head.

"Feels good," Charlie said and put a hand over Ray's, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"Yeah?" Ray wondered if he sounded as surprised as he felt.

"I actually like the civilized approach. Funny: I'd have thought you'd go straight for my dick if you weren't too busy telling me to do likewise to yours."

"Nothing wrong with the direct approach."

"No, there isn't." Charlie proved that point for both of them by putting his hand back where it'd been in the alley. "Tell you what. You do whatever you want, and I'll do this for a while."

"Great." Ray found he was smiling as Charlie started unbuckling his belt. Ray concentrated on getting rid of Charlie's vest and suspenders while letting his body decide what it thought of Charlie's hand.

The hand was a big hit. In a minute or two, Ray was sprawled back with Charlie stroking his naked cock nice and hard, just the way Ray liked it. "Oh, Christ, that's good."

"Shift your hips and I'll peel these trousers and boxers all the way off. Then I can start on the truly good part."

There was something Ray had to do first. "Hold on a minute." Moving fast, he caught Charlie by surprise. Rolling on top of him, Ray pinned Charlie down on the coverlet and grabbed a kiss.

Now, this was really different. Charlie needed another shave, and his face was firmer than any girl's that Ray had ever been with. Charlie's lips were thinner, too, but his mouth was soft and wet, and his tongue came calling like a cop breaking down the door to a bookie joint that had shorted the pad. A corner of Ray's mind could hear the small, wet noises as they kissed and liked them a lot. He also liked the strength of Charlie's arms wrapped around him, and the feel of the hard body working against his own. Charlie's trousered leg stropping against Ray's naked cock was almost enough to make him spend. He felt his cock twitch. Tearing his mouth away, he had to hold Charlie tight to try and keep him still, not that he really succeeded. Ray could hear his own, ragged breathing, loud in the bedroom's quiet.

Charlie rolled them back over, his jaw firm and his eyes hot. His voice rasped when he asked, "Do you, or do you not, want your dick sucked?"

"Stop talking and get moving." Ray managed to free a hand with which he reached up and gently knuckled Charlie's cheek. Charlie's eyelids closed and he ducked into the knuckles for a moment in something close to a nuzzle. Ray's gut twisted, but the feeling was a good one. All he could put together in his head, though, was that Charlie had really long eyelashes. Then Charlie opened his eyes, smiled, knocked Ray's hand aside with a forearm, and worked his way down Ray's torso. He got to where Ray's trousers and boxers were wadded up around his thighs, parted his lips, took a breath, and slid his lips over the tip of Ray's flushed and swollen cock.

This wasn't as fancy as some of the maneuvers that Robin had used, the ones Ray recalled from memories worn deep with keeping him company late at night. But after so many years, who the hell cared? Ray had to knot his hands into the shoulders of Charlie's shirt to keep from grabbing his head and fucking his mouth like a slob. Good thing that Charlie was doing the job fast, with lots of wetness and the feeling of soft cheeks drawn up tight against the sides of Ray's cock as he sucked. And, what Charlie was doing with his tongue as he bobbed his head up and down didn't need to be fancy.

Ray almost banged his skull into the headboard as he dug his heels in and pushed his hips up. Charlie was half-way off the bed and all twisted around, but he wasn't letting that stop what his mouth was doing. Talented bastard. One of Ray's hands was off Charlie's shoulder now and tangled in his hair, combing through the softness almost frantically. His ass was so tense that he felt like he could have cracked walnuts between his cheeks. He was sweating, gasping, and heat seemed to be streaming from his thighs and stomach into his cock.

"Gonna…" he somehow managed to get out. Instead of pulling back, Charlie pushed forward and sucked hard. He always did like a challenge. Then there weren't any more garbled thoughts, only the raw, surging pleasure of pumping three years of self-denial into Charlie's mouth, and watching him, feeling him, make it all good.

When Ray was done panting, and had some brains back, he tugged Charlie up onto the bed with him. The squeeze was a little tight, but they managed to fit. Charlie's cock, still trapped in his trousers, was a hard lump against Ray's leg, and his eyes were half-closed. Ray reached between them and fished around with a tentative hand, which made Charlie's nostrils flare ever so slightly. Somehow, that gesture was encouraging.

Ray sat up, and quickly unbuttoned Charlie's fly. Then he seemed to watch himself from a distance as he got Charlie's cock loose from the cotton underwear, ran fingers up and down, and touched it curiously here and there as if he'd never seen another guy's tackle before. Following some impulse or other, Ray ran the back of his hand up and down the underside of the shaft, seeing how the smoothness shifted the dark hairs on his own skin. Charlie let out a choked-off noise that might have been a whimper, and Ray glanced at him, surprised back into the here and now.

Charlie gave him an exasperated stare in return, but there was something pleased about his expression, too. His irises were as dilated as if he'd been sniffing Master Alistair's best and his lips were red and swollen from all the kissing and sucking. Without looking away to see what he was doing, Ray wrapped his palm around Charlie's cock and started pumping it, watching the changes in Charlie's expression. After maybe half a minute, Ray found a good stroke that Charlie seemed to really like, and felt the change as Charlie pushed hard into his hand, matching his rhythm to Ray's efforts.

Now Ray looked down. There was a guy's cock in his hand, Charlie's cock. Somewhere deep inside he felt a slow, clenching pleasure that he sensed could build back into hot excitement. Yeah, Ray was funny, all right. And Charlie, pushing hard, was ready to come.

Feeling suddenly determined, Ray leaned over and licked at the tip of Charlie's cock. "Shit!" Charlie said, not a word Ray had heard from him a lot. Awkwardly, Ray parted his lips and tried sucking at the cock in his grip.

He didn't do it right, he knew he didn't. Seemed that Charlie was past caring, though. With another choked-back noise, this one almost a moan, he grabbed the coverlet with both his fists, yanked it in no direction that made sense, and bucked his hips up hard. Taken by surprise, Ray's mouth slipped half-way off of his target as Charlie came. The result was sloppy. But Ray was surprised to find himself still stroking Charlie afterwards, and even giving the cock in his hand one covert kiss before digging out his handkerchief to try and clean up some of the mess. Charlie just lay there, breathing like he'd been running races. Ray slid back up next to him, not sure what to say. Charlie glanced at him and then away.

They were both quiet for a minute. Then Charlie spoke. "This wasn't what I expected."

Ray shrugged, not caring if Charlie could see. "So? No instructions, don't complain."

"I wasn't. The sex was good."

"Yeah, considering I didn't know what the fuck I was doing half the time." Ray thought about that for a minute. For him, the sex was great, but nothing about it had changed Ray. Three years away from Manhattan, turning what he had done there over and over in his mind, was what had changed him.

"I'll move in a minute," Charlie said, "and we can talk."

"Okay."

"I think this took care of, oh, the distraction. Of you. Like me." He shifted around, probably trying to get comfortable. "You are."

"Fine," Ray half-sighed, "That's great. I'm a pansy, a what-you-call-it, a homosexual. So now you can tell me what else you're doing in town." Not bothering to fight the urge, he yawned.

He thought Charlie was gathering his thoughts until he heard the first snore.

"Jesus." After a moment or two of slow consideration, Ray added, "Figures."

He thought about poking Charlie awake and getting him the hell out of Ray's bed, but it seemed like that would take too much work. He settled for reaching out with the arm that wasn't all tangled up, finding the cord on his bedside lamp, and yanking it hard enough to turn the light out.

Some moonlight shone in through the window. Charlie snored, not too loud. Ray tried to come up with a bright idea about what to do next, but had to settle for sleep instead. For once, the memories of Manhattan, and of his former boss, Grip, didn't partner him in his dreams.

VI

Grip always used to call Ray soft, and then say how even soft had uses. Since, back in the beginning, he often said this after Ray had just beaten someone up, Ray usually ignored him.

Grip never ignored Ray.

He hadn't ignored Ray when they'd first met, when Grip had brought over a bundle of clothes from his mother for the poor orphan boy come from the wilds of Staten Island to live with their mutual Aunt Sarah in Hell's Kitchen. Even back then, when they were both eleven, Grip could walk into a room and soak up all the light in it. He was a golden blond, strong for his age, and already handsome. He had a punishing handshake and a winning smile. The women in the family fed him mandelbread and rugelach and made excuses for the times when Grip lifted nickels from their purses.

Sarah had left the two of them together while she went upstairs on some mysterious, adult errand. They were in the parlor, and Ray was pushing himself up with his toes against the rug to keep from sliding off an overstuffed horsehair cushion. Grip looked him over, head tilted, and Ray wondered what this new cousin was thinking. Then Grip went to the cut-crystal bowl on the marble-topped table and took out a piece of ribbon candy. "You want some?"

Ray knew he wasn't supposed to take candy without permission, but there was an easier way to refuse than sounding like a nancy-boy. "I don't like the stuff." His answer was true, which was helpful. Ray was already a lousy liar.

"Too bad for you." Grip studied him some more and then said, "At least you get some time off because of the move. When are you going back to school?"

Knowing better than to admit that he missed math classes more than his parents, Ray said, "I dunno. Next week." He shrugged.

Seeming to reach some sort of conclusion, Grip gave him a brilliant smile. Ray blinked. "Okay. I'll tell the rest of the fellows that you're coming." He pulled a Hershey bar from his rear pocket and tossed it across the room to Ray, who caught it, surprised. "In the meantime, try this."

Just that easily, Ray's future was determined, even though he never found out why Grip decided whatever he had about Ray during their first meeting. Ray started by doing favors for Grip's gang, mostly for the sake of gaining some company and getting in good with boys that he was often related to. Next thing he knew, Ray was beating up some kid from outside the neighborhood who'd had the gall to threaten Grip right in front of Ray's face.

Ray also beat up another kid, one who was always following around the O'Malley girl and grabbing at her tits and ass, but Grip found a way to use that, too. Years later, Ray heard from her what Grip had told her, when Ray saw the two of them together by the chain link fence the next day at recess. Grip claimed to have sent Ray to be her protector. She was Grip's first steady girlfriend. This set up another pattern. Ray lost a lot of "girlfriends" to Grip down through the years. Not that Ray blamed the dolls: Grip only got better looking as he grew into adulthood. His smile flashed like the lights in Times Square. Like Grip's mistresses, Ray was dazzled. He liked to think that he hid it better than the dames did, though.

There was a steady rhythm to this dance that went on between them. Ray would try and fix something, and Grip would take the credit, or give Ray the credit and find a way to work Ray's reputation into Grip's current scheme. By the time Ray was informed that he'd get no money for college, Grip had already been out of school for three years and had a slot at his father's transport business ready and waiting for Ray. The slot included driving tank trucks filled with hooch into other boroughs, but that wasn't anything a lot of guys from their own neighborhood weren't doing, too. So, Ray kept working the trucks until he was told to beat the crap out of some guy from a rival firm who was just trying to keep away from trouble. He went to Grip, meaning to quit, and was soothed into working as a mechanic, instead. But the new position didn't last long. Grip, being Grip, wanted to use Ray's other talents, the ones that needed a pen and ledger book, or clenched fists, rather than a box of tools.

For years Ray fooled himself that he was forcing Grip to let Ray stay mostly clean. Only as he got older, read more, talked less, watched the faces, did he realize that he was serving as Grip's good right hand, the one whose gestures distracting onlookers from whatever the left hand did. Ray dispatched the fleet of tank-trucks, fronted tiny import/export businesses, backed dashing yachtsmen in doubtful races up around Maine and down around the Bahamas, helped negotiate contracts involving warehouses of bonded medicinal alcohol, and made money. Grip made even more money running the rest of the gang while doing jobs for the Sicilians and the Irish. Ray would beat up company representatives for leaning on widows whose husbands had died in industrial accidents or kick petty thieves out of the neighborhood. Grip would accept the neighbors' grateful respect before leaving town to talk with some guy in Boston, a fellow soon to disappear without leaving a forwarding address.

Whenever Grip wanted a good guy, he sent for Ray. Ray didn't know why he kept answering the summons unless it had something to do with Grip's smile, a smile that still seemed to sing to Ray. Of course, everyone else danced to the tune of Grip's smile in their corner of Manhattan, too. And at least the jobs were interesting.

Even Grip's notion, as the years slid into 1930, of changing a nightclub that had been losing money into a pansy club like the ones attracting attention down in the Village, was interesting. Ray knew without explanations that he would be running the joint because you couldn't have anyone funny in charge of a club with such characters on staff. The cops wouldn't take their proper tribute if the place's manager was floral, for example. But patrolmen would sit down for a drink with Ray before he handed over their envelopes. And Ray didn't have to know about whatever deeper scheme might underlay the Club Priory. The club could be nothing but a farm for funds, after all. Lots of the businesses Ray fronted were almost legitimate.

That first night when, between acts backstage, Robin sucked Ray's cock, Ray looked down and saw only another employee who it was Ray's job to exploit and to protect, a nicer, funnier character than many of his kind and most of Ray's ex-girlfriends. On his side, Robin clearly saw Ray as an easy boss and an occasional distraction for a dull night. They got along, but the cocksucking wasn't any big deal. Charlie had been the real shock, him and all the buddy-buddy that all of a sudden cropped up between the two of them. Compared to realizing that Ray was now good friends with a pansy, finding out later that this pansy was also a cop, was nothing.

Maybe Ray didn't have enough friends right then. He didn't shake off Charlie, didn't do anything worse than heckle the guy, which was likely stupid, looking back.

"Hey, Charlie," Ray asked one evening late in '31, just to try stirring him up. "How come you fellows from Washington never bust up those gangs out in Brooklyn?" It had taken him months to figure out that Charlie must be coming up the coast every other Thursday from D.C. for reasons to do with his job, and then staying over the weekends to go clubbing.

"Which fellows would those be, and how am I supposed to break them up, being an accountant?" Charlie asked with a wry smile. "I can review taxes, but only in New Jersey. I'm not sure how much good that would do while dealing with Brooklyn racketeers. Besides, my employer doesn't believe in organized crime." His smile went from wry to sour.

With a grin, Ray had pulled out his silver lighter, flicked the top, and leaned over to light the cigarette Charlie was putting between his lips.

Made you sweat, Ray's grin had said.

You can only hope, Charlie's cool, first puff had replied.

It was four months later that Ray got an invitation to join Grip for dinner at the Stork Club. Ray wasn't looking forward to the treat. Club Priory was starting to lose money as the pansy craze waned. And Grip had been much antsier lately, given how his disputes with the Gerello family were building up, likely to lose his temper at anything he saw as a slight. But Grip was great that evening, like his old self. They had a nice, slow dinner of some good sirloin steaks, and lingered over their drinks afterwards. Almost two hours passed before Grip brought up anything that might be trouble.

"So," Grip said, leaning back and blowing cigar smoke up towards the ceiling. "What's up with this Charlie guy?"

Ray felt surprised at the question although he didn't know why. Maybe it was because he'd been thinking about the club as separate from everything else in his life, nothing that an outsider would know about. In any case, Ray's surprise was probably what saved him, given how bad a liar he was. "Charlie? He hints around that he's an accountant out from California, now living down in Jersey somewhere. I think he's some kind of a cop, though."

"Yeah, so I heard. Warn that Robin fella off of him, will you?"

Ray shrugged. "They're all pansies. Who cares?"

"Do it."

Those words had been flat enough that Ray spread the fingers of both hands in appeasement. "Okay, okay. I'll talk to him tomorrow."

Grip smiled, seemingly satisfied. For some reason, the expression wasn't anywhere near as dazzling as it used to be. The bodyguards who were always with Grip these days just kept shoveling down the beef stew.

Robin didn't show up for work at the club the next afternoon, and he hadn't telephoned. This was odd enough for Ray to go to Robin's apartment later that evening to see if the guy was sick, which is why he was the one to find Robin's gassed body. When he'd told Grip the news later the same week, Grip had smiled a little. Ray didn't say anything. Instead he found an excuse to leave where he didn't have to lie.

The cops had been easy. They expected Robin's sort of fellow to kill himself. Charlie had been hard. He'd stared at Ray with dry, hot eyes and said, "You know who did it."

"No." Charlie just looked at him, and Ray added, "But I know who's responsible, and there's not a damned thing you can do. He's got an alibi for the time of death."

"Who—"

"From me." Charlie closed his eyes like Ray had hit him. Ray didn't know why his voice was pleading when he added, "A couple of other guys, too. And I don't know why, exactly. You know Robin got up to stuff." The expression on Charlie's face was distant. Even his eyes had lost their light. "I'll tell you if you want, but you won't learn anything that'll hold up in court."

"No, I already knew." His shoulders slumping, Charlie added, "Not that knowing does me any good. Even if this town was my responsibility, even if I took the risk to myself, I'd have to sort out an entire organization to get to the man I want. And there's no such thing as 'organized' crime in America, according to— Oh, hell." He closed his eyes.

When Charlie left Club Priory that evening, it was the last time Ray saw him for three years.

All this wasn't the only reason Robin's death ate at Ray. He'd always thought of himself as the protector, even if his illusions had worn thin in recent years. Now he felt like the guy who delivered the dogs to be shot by the dogcatcher. He kept quiet, but when a Gerello retainer slid up to him in a waterfront speak a few weeks later, he let the guy buy him a drink.

After Grip was found floating in the Hudson, the Gerellos made an offer for Ray's share in all the businesses. The offer was much too high. He accepted.

Between the buy-out and his savings, Ray still had a lot of cash left even after the purchases he'd made in San Juan Potosi. Running the arcade was really only a soothing, quiet hobby. He had plenty of time to think over his life, not that he seemed to be able to stop doing that anyhow. Ray was like that guy on the card in Granny's fortune cabinet in the arcade, hanging from one foot, swinging in the wind. No wonder he was finally able to admit that he might be a pansy. Such a label was a speck of sand to the boulder that crushed him in his dreams, a murmur to the other word's shout. He'd danced to that other word's tune for three long years. He'd let "traitor" become the rope that hung him high.

Ray was ready to be cut down.

VII

When Ray awoke the next morning, he was alone. For a few seconds, he felt sick and empty until he faintly heard the sound of someone closing the icebox door in the kitchen. Ray sat up on the coverlet. Then he sniffed and smelt bacon frying.

When he went in to shower, he could tell the bathroom had already been used. Charlie's trousers were hanging over the towel rack, still damp from being sponged off. The towel that he'd used was neatly folded on top of the can, and he'd taken the extra toothbrush. He'd used Ray's razor, too, which should have been annoying but wasn't.

He'd also made breakfast: coffee and bacon, toast and eggs. "You like your eggs sunnyside up, right?" Charlie was wearing a pair of Ray's pants. He'd had to cuff them up and pull his belt in tight. His shirt was wrinkled but not unwearable; he must have hung it up in the bathroom while he showered.

Back in Manhattan, they'd eaten a couple of late breakfasts after long nights and then gone to see some ballgames together: Robin hadn't liked sports much. Charlie must have remembered what Ray had ordered. "That's right. Hey, you want to eat out on the lawn?"

Slowly, Charlie smiled. It was only then Ray realized that Charlie had been nervous, too. "Sure. It's a beautiful day."

The day was beautiful, clear and sunny. Ray had a couple of Adirondack chairs and a table placed outside on what served him for grass, ready for days like this. He brought out the dishes and other stuff, and Charlie toted food back and forth. Then they postponed conversation for a while to shovel in the grub. Unlike on most mornings after, Ray was as ravenous as if he'd spent the previous evening moving pianos, not getting his ashes hauled.

When Ray had eaten the last piece of toast, he leaned back for a while, studying the sea. The water shimmered and shifted, blue under the sunlight. Far offshore, just short of the fog bank, the fishing boats were out. A couple of freighters were heading up the coast, trailing streamers of smoke behind them. Closer at hand, Ray needed to cut his grass. The over-long blades almost glowed green on this bright a day.

With a clunk, Charlie put down his mug of coffee on the plank table-top. "Another thing I've missed the past few years is how you can be quiet."

Ray snorted without turning his head. "Weren't you going to tell me about why you're here?"

"Yes, I was." Charlie took a deep breath, and let it out. He was silent for a few seconds and then said, "Ray, I apologize."

Incredulous, Ray shifted in his seat to get a good view of Charlie's expression before he asked, "You came all the way out here to apologize?" Belatedly, he added, "What for?"

"In case you'd forgotten, I grew up in Sacramento. San Juan isn't that much of a trip for me." Then, looking annoyed, "But that's drifting. I'm apologizing for making you my scapegoat."

Ray's eyes narrowed.

"Calm down. Not legally, morally. When I heard about Grip, I spent years trying to condemn you for doing what I wanted to do, what needed to be done. But you don't shun a fellow for shooting a rabid dog, especially when it's his dog that needs shooting."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Ray knew his voice was flat.

Charlie's voice was just as flat when he replied, "I know you don't. And I don't expect you to. I'm merely telling you what I realized, what cut my last tie to the Bureau. I stand by my opinion, but it's not one that should be held by anyone who claims to enforce the law." Charlie turned his hand palm up. "In the Bureau's world, someone would have testified against Grip rather than put three bullets into him. However, I've also seen what happens to fellows who try to roll over on one of the gangster bosses, and you've never struck me as a martyr."

Ray studied him. Charlie was hard to read, but Ray thought he had the knack of it by now. He seemed to be telling what he thought was the truth.

Charlie smiled wryly. "In any case, while wrapping up certain other matters before I went out the Bureau's door, a friend of mine in another department asked my opinion of information that they'd received about San Juan Potosi. It seems that there've been a lot of now-illegal pharmaceuticals out here for a while, and he wanted to know if I recognized any of the names involved. He knew I was, hmm, more serious about a certain type of criminal than many of my former colleagues are." His expression had shifted. This new smile of Charlie's was a fake. "Imagine my surprise upon seeing your name in the folder." He sounded like Robin again.

Curious, Ray asked, "So why didn't you finger me for the bad guy of San Juan?" Charlie obviously hadn't, or Ray's cock wouldn't be so happy this morning. Pansy club or no pansy club, the guy had his limits.

Charlie only raised his eyebrows and gave Ray a look. "You'd go to all the trouble of disentangling yourself from vending hooch only to sell dope? Please. Certain specifics aside, your recent actions most closely match those of other players who've decided to leave the game entirely now that drinking alcohol is legal again." He sipped his coffee. "Besides, I knew you."

Unable to resist, Ray said, "Well, you know me a hell of a lot better now."

You'd have thought Ray had brought the guy flowers or something, not heckled him. Charlie's smile was brilliant before he continued, "Since I'd already decided to return to California after leaving the Bureau, I offered to scout around, strictly on an informal basis. I should have known that, not being the villain, you would have collided with the man who was."

"So, we're talking about Master Alistair now." 

"Yes."

"I don't have anything that a cop can use against him."

Charlie didn't answer Ray's comment directly. "I once had a problem that I couldn't solve with my usual methods, the ones I was good at, the ones I employed almost without thinking. But someone who did things a different way solved my problem for me." He smiled faintly. "Perhaps you should follow my example."

Ray digested this. "You want me to hold off on dealing with Mister Master."

The nod he got from Charlie might have been from a Federal Judge sitting on the bench, it was that kingly. "Suffice it to say, Mr. Alistair, his lawyer, and especially his accountant will all be very busy very soon."

Keeping up with the newspapers was easy when you didn't date much. Lacking a social life gave you a lot of free hours. Ray read articles about what was happening to his former colleagues all the time. "You son-of-a-bitch. You guys are pulling a Capone on Alistair. You've called in the I.R.S."

"Other peculations aside, we'll see how this so-called Master Alistair does without his religious tax-exemption on all that property. A tax-exemption, mind you, that can't be doing this county any good during the slump." This time Charlie's smile was as cold, smooth, and sweet as a bucket of ice cream. "I hope you don't mind my cutting in to take care of your problem for you."

Although he felt his eyes narrow, Ray knew he was relieved. He sure as hell hadn't wanted to go back to the old ways. Helping people, even watching out for them, was fine, but he was really sick of blood. He'd figured out this during all the brooding, if nothing else.

No, he'd learned one other thing that counted. "So, what're you going to do next?" Maybe Charlie would be willing to stick around a while, after he was done with his snooping, and help Ray out with the other realization.

"A day or two after I got here, I decided that I might like to stay." Charlie stared benignly out at the view. "After all, the town may need another accountant soon."

There didn't seem to be much to say in reply, at least not much that wouldn't make Ray sound like a sap. He settled for asking, "Have you gotten to see the waterfront yet?"

"Not in any way that's much fun."

Ray shrugged. "I'll show you around if you want. The rest of San Juan Potosi is nice, too, and there's some good fishing up in the mountains."

What he got this time was a grin, a kind-of-hopeful one. "Actually, I like to swim."

"I'll take you to the local beaches." Ray waggled his eyebrows. "If you're really all done with your old job, there's even one I can take you to where folks go for nude swimming."

"You're joshing me. What are they around here, physical culturalists?"

So, they had at least gotten through the important part of their conversation before they were interrupted again. Ray had been entertaining Charlie with stories about some of the more harmless local cuckoos for a good twenty minutes when Charlie glanced past him and said, "Uh-oh."

Ray turned around. One of Master Alistair's little lambs, one of the two cuties who'd been sitting with him at Dink's, was wandering across Ray's lawn. She must have jumped his fence.

He and Charlie sat unmoving while she walked up and stood in front of them. She didn't look to be carrying anything dangerous underneath her tight robe, but Ray still wished he could frisk her. She eased his nerves by lacing her hands together and breathing deeply, like a schoolgirl about to start reciting, before she said, "I am Merehu."

"Yeah. I'm Ray, this is Charlie. Not pleased to meet you." Charlie nodded, seemingly in agreement.

"Master Alistair wishes to confer with the unbeliever." And Master Alistair wasn't dumb enough to try trespassing on Ray's home territory when Ray had an unfamiliar buddy with unknown resources hanging around.

If Alistair was about to get his clock cleaned anyhow, it was time for Ray to end this crap between them. "Okay, fine. Tell him to meet me at the Grand Palace Ballroom at about five this afternoon."

She nodded, her lips moving like she was committing his message to memory. A cutie she might be, but whatever Master Alistair was up to had obviously cooked her brain like a soft-boiled egg.

"Get lost," Ray told her, but his tone wasn't as harsh as he meant it to be. She only nodded again, turned around, and wandered off.

Charlie pursed his lips, waited, and then said, "Now, there was a close-up of why you're butting heads with this character."

"Yeah." Ray sighed. "Although it probably won't be his forehead that I'm knocking on this evening. I'm expecting strong-arm mooks."

"I agree," Charlie said, nodding.

"You want to come?"

For some reason, Charlie grinned. "I need to go back to my hotel and change my suit, and also put through some long-distance telephone calls, but yes."

"Fine. Meet me at the arcade around four-thirty, okay?

"I will." Charlie stood up and stretched. "Are you all right clearing up the remnants here?"

"I've been picking up after myself for a long time now. I'm a big boy, remember?"

Charlie laughed, reached over, and ruffled Ray's hair. "You certainly are."

Ray glared at him. He hadn't pomaded his hair yet this morning, but still. "Ha, ha, ha. Get lost, okay?"

Charlie did. A few hours later, though, over at the arcade, he was back.

Having made his own telephone calls, and having completed a few emergency repairs to the crane, Ray was down on the floor beneath the fortune-telling machine when a familiar pair of oxfords walked up and stopped beside Granny.

"Hey, Charlie," Ray said without getting up. "Put a nickel in the slot, would you?"

"All right." Ray could hear the nickel slide in and see, in the glow of his flashlight, the machinery going into action.

"Let me know what card Granny ends up pointing to."

There was a pause, and then Charlie said, "The one with a fellow hanging from a tree."

"Heck," Ray said, out of deference to the afternoon customers. There were more kids around this early in the day and, even though they had likely heard somewhere else all the words Ray could come out with, they weren't hearing them again from Ray. "Give me a minute, here." He took out a screwdriver and shifted one of the gears a touch farther down its rod. "Try it again, would you?"

Again the machinery whirring into action and the pause. This time, Charlie said, "Now the mannequin is pointing towards the card with an angel blowing a trumpet on it. Is that good?"

"You betcha." Ray cleaned up his mess, slid back and out from the fortune teller, locked up the access panel, and stood up. Brushing off his trousers, he said, "Come on, red-hot. Give me a hand moving this machine back against the wall."

Charlie, who'd been squeezing the handle on the neighboring Love Tester machine, straightened up guiltily and helped Ray shift Granny back into place. Ray took down the "out of order" sign and removed the two fortunes in the slot.

Charlie stole one of them away and read, "Beware, you may be in peril."

"I don't think so. I left the Colt at home." Ray picked up his toolbox. "Come on. Let me put this in the cage with Joseph, and we'll go over to the ballroom to talk with Master Alistair, or his messengers."

"You really know how to sweep a fellow off his feet," Charlie said, and rolled his eyes.

As they headed out the archway lined in neon, a middle-aged dame with a bad marcel wave was putting a nickel in the fortune-telling machine behind them. Ray spared a corner of his brain to wish her better luck that he'd had.

VII

Ray paused across the street from the shooting gallery, pretending to study some seagulls floating over the palms at the edge of the beach while he told Charlie about what he suspected and what he'd prepared. Neither of them was surprised when they spotted the characters who were easing towards them through the evening crowd on the pier.

"How many do you count?" Ray said, his voice just loud enough to carry to Charlie above all the noise.

"Four."

"Call it six, then, to include the guys I'd bet we've missed."

"That sounds about right." Charlie touched Ray's arm, and they both paused as three fishermen stumbled past them, singing. "Shall we pick up the pace a little?"

"Yeah." Ray hurried up.

The two of them didn't actually want to shake off their tails and then have a bunch of unknown mooks show up later when they weren't expected. So, the trick was to walk fast enough to keep their followers from converging on them, but not fast enough to make it clear they'd spotted the guys. The job was easier than it might have been because Ray was working with Charlie, who knew the business.

Ray didn't have time to get soft at that thought because he'd noticed what looked like a fifth guy, buying some peanuts from a vendor. "Five," he said.

"Six," said Charlie, who'd just tipped his hat to a mother with a perambulator and three other children hanging off of her. The kids were clutching bags of salt-water taffy and were probably sticky, but the thought of them getting caught up in some big brawl on the pier still irritated Ray. He veered abruptly towards the narrow passage between the Grand Palace Ballroom and the seafood restaurant next to it. Overhead, the pennants on the ballroom's roof were snapping in the sea breeze above the fake minarets. The neon tubes lining the roof and windows hadn't been lit yet, but the place was still a nice color in the light of early evening. Ray wanted to tow Charlie away for a dinner where they could eat a bunch of oysters and watch the waves do what waves did at sunset, not horse around with some strong-arm guys: one more item to chalk up against Alistair.

Just like last night, the fellow who watched the door was outside, smoking. Better here than inside, Ray supposed, but he was still glad to see the guy straighten and grind the butt out under his heel when Ray showed up.

"Sir," he said to Ray.

"You don't know me," Ray said. "Get lost, and let the guys behind us sneak in."

"I take it that you've met," Charlie said after they'd gone inside.

"I'll explain later."

They could feel the beat before they could hear the music. Rhythm carried well on the pier for some reason. By the time they were to the door that would let them into the ballroom, the notes of the foxtrot were clear. Ray paused underneath the last, bare bulb hanging overhead, and grabbed Charlie's arm. They would have to listen hard to tell if anyone was coming down the concrete-floored corridor behind them.

Charlie turned his head back and forth and then nodded. He'd always had the better hearing of the two of them. Ray twisted the knob, and they both went through the door and into the ballroom.

All nine couples from last night were still swaying very slowly around the floor, which kind of astonished Ray, even though the pairs mostly had one partner propping up the other, sleeping partner. It was funny watching some six-footer snooze on some tiny doll's shoulder, but not ha-ha funny, and not Ray and Charlie funny, either.

Ray, with Charlie on his heels, worked his way from the door around the base of the bleachers, away from the band and towards the roped-off stairway stretching all the way up through the paying seats and on to the lobby. The two of them had almost made it to the stairs when the door that they'd used opened back up, and a bunch of guys piled through it. There were seven of Alistair's strong-arm men in the pack, and none of them were paying much attention to where they were going, which was probably why events veered away from Ray's plan.

He'd thought that, under the eyes of the big, early-evening crowd, not to mention those of the dancers, the band, the master-of-ceremonies, and Al Leverett, their followers would have the sense to take Ray's and Charlie's round-about route to the stairs. Instead, one of the mooks pointed and yelled "There they are!", and the whole bunch charged right across the dance floor. Crap. Ray should have allowed for the soft-boiling effects of whatever Master Alistair was feeding these guys.

If Ray had ever thought that he'd seen chaos back at his own club in Manhattan, he'd been wrong. Turned out, hell had no fury like that of a female dancer rudely awoken by a cultist mook with big feet. The first couple went sprawling, the next merely shrieked and yelled. The third, fourth and fifth managed to get out of the way after some ducking and weaving. But the sixth girl had time to get her high-heels off. Then she used one shoe, heel first, smack across the cheek of the biggest mook.

For just a moment, Charlie paused, his expression awed. But, "Oh my," was the best he could do before barreling out onto the floor to help the beleaguered dancers. With a sigh, Ray followed, and so did all of Mona and Joseph's male relatives that he'd recruited and planted in the bleachers by the stairs, and so did some spectators who jumped over the edge of the stands. Fortunately, the bouncer and master-of-ceremonies were sharp enough to focus on keeping the rest of the audience from emptying down the stairs and onto the floor, even while Al Leverett rabbit-punched one of Master Alistair's guys who'd knocked over his judge's podium. The dance band, acting as if the ballroom was a ship sinking off of the pier and under the sea, just kept right on playing, "You're the Cream in my Coffee."

The fight didn't last all that long, really. Only a few decorations got torn down, and most of the crowd settled for cheering and throwing popcorn. Ray thought he saw the waitress from last night paste one of Alistair's guys in the ear with a box of Red Hots. The mooks lost steam fast.

Besides, some deputy sheriffs, having been already tipped that something might be going on, were right in the neighborhood. But by the time the mooks were hauled off for trespassing, disturbing the peace, and the truly dangerous offense of annoying a big-time local businessman who'd been pursuing legitimate profits, several of the couples had collapsed and had to be treated by the on-call nurse. The heat of a fight on top of weeks of marathon dancing was just too much for the system, it seemed. In the middle of all this, Leverett and the master-of-ceremonies went into a huddle. When they called Ray over, Charlie looked up from talking to the deputy sheriffs and raised both eyebrows.

"Well, that should deplete Master Alistair's local forces long enough to let the pincers of the law clamp onto him. However, what was all that earlier chit-chat about?" he asked Ray a few minutes later, when they could finally talk, even if it was over the noise of the dance band. To the renewed cheers of the crowd, Leverett had announced that, due to the disturbance, the grand cash prize of three thousand dollars would be split between all the remaining participants. Usually such a mild finish to the marathon – no tears, no hysterics, no ambulance for the runner-up pair – would have irritated the spectators. But the multiple collapsing couples, the brawls, and the arrests made up for this happy ending. The spectators were already spilling down onto the floor to do some hoofing themselves alongside the winning couples in the Victory Dance.

"What, you're talking about the announcement?" Ray shrugged at Charlie, deliberately misunderstanding. "Don't worry about it. These marathons are fixed anyhow. Usually the local amateurs are squeezed out, one of the professional, touring pairs wins, and most of the prize money is kicked back to the organizers. At least this time, four of the couples out there at the finish were locals, and they can't be stiffed."

Charlie shook his head. "Pleased though I am that justice was served, I was actually wondering why you were consulted by the manager here." Given the way Ray's luck with lying went, Leverett picked that moment to come over and explain everything to Charlie.

"Well, now," Leverett said, beaming happily as he swabbed his forehead with a handkerchief. He'd have a black eye tomorrow from where one of the mooks got him with a glancing blow. "That went okay. You gonna come by and sign the papers on Monday?"

"Yeah," Ray said, at the same time as Charlie asked, "Papers?"

"Of partnership. He's picking up a share in— Hey. Who are you?" Leverett went from pleased excitement to suspicion in about five seconds.

"This is Charlie. He's an old pal of mine. An accountant," Ray said, resigned.

"Oh, yeah?" Leverett asked, beaming again. "Then I guess we'll be seeing each other a lot these next few weeks." He vigorously pumped Charlie's hand without breaking the flow of his words. "He must've told you about kickin' in the money to buy off the organizers, and then findin' the band we've brought in to replace the marathon with, huh? I couldn't figure out why Ray hung our deal on that until I went over this week's attendance figures. The numbers weren't anything you're gonna like when you see 'em. He's a good businessman, this one. He knew the crowds were getting' bored with other folk's hoofing. Now, let me ask you how we're gonna register—"

"Thanks for the compliment, Al," Ray managed to break in, "but isn't that the Sheriff looking for you?"

"Sure is. Excuse us a minute, would you?" Leverett said to Charlie, as he pulled Ray a few steps away. "Ray. You still thinkin' about selling that Colt of yours?"

With a shrug, Ray said, "Nah. I figure I'll hold onto it for a keepsake. The fellow who gave it to me is dead." The Colt had been a gift from Grip. It would be a good reminder of what could happen if Ray ever insisted on walking around with his eyes shut again.

"Just as well. I didn't want to tell you before, what with our deal pending and all, but replacing the original barrel kinda ruins the gun for a collector."

"Oh, yeah? Then you're right. It's just as well I'm keeping the piece."

Without a show on, Leverett's voice wasn't what a guy could call discrete. He was used to talking over dance bands. Also, Charlie had cop ears and no problems with eavesdropping. As soon as Leverett had charged off to deal with the Sheriff, Charlie strolled over and said, "I didn't know that, amidst your studies, you'd kept up with the latest developments in police forensics. Unlike Mr. Leverett."

Ray gave him a bewildered look that probably wouldn't have fooled a four-year-old in his old neighborhood, and asked, "What do forensics have to do with anything?"

"Probably the worst liar among former businessmen that I'll ever meet," Charlie said, "enough so that I won't test your reaction to the word 'ballistics'." But he was smiling as he asked, "Merely out of curiosity, when is the trash emptied in that alley where I greeted you last night?"

"Early this morning. Why, you lose something? If you hurry, you might catch this week's load before it goes out to sea. Maybe. There'll be a lot of stuff to sort through, though."

"No, I'm merely curious." The smile went off his face, but Charlie's eyes were warm as he added, "Just as well."

"Yeah, just as well." Looking back at the celebration on the floor, Ray added, "Nice of Leverett to help me out by fixing the Colt. Somehow the barrel had gotten all eaten away since the last time I did a little shooting with that piece."

A hint of the smile was back on Charlie's lips. "I see." He shifted his shoulders, squaring them as if he'd come to some conclusion. "Do you think you could be spared from your place of business for a while?"

"I've got a kid who helps out Joseph and Mona on Friday nights, one of their cousins. He wasn't mixed up in this, so he can come in early." Ray eyed him. "Why?"

"If you're willing to listen, I have a pitch for your bookkeeping business, given that the town's formerly best accountant will soon be preoccupied for a while. I suspect you need the help. Afterwards, I thought we could get a bite to eat and play a few hands of cards."

Cards. Uh-huh. Ray turned and considered Charlie, who considered him right back. "You really are an accountant."

"I'll have to renew my qualifications specific to California, but, yes, I am. In fact, although I was one of the first of my kind, Mr. Hoover has now decided he prefers all Bureau agents to be educated either as accountants or as lawyers."

"Great." Ray took a deep breath and told himself not to get impatient. "So, why don't you come back to my place and tell me about it? In fact, why don't you grab your suitcase from the hotel and bring it along? You can use my spare room. If you're going to open your own business, you'll need to start saving money."

Charlie appeared to be much struck by this notion. Wisenheimer. "Very true, very true. All right, you've persuaded me. Off we go."

VIII

Of course, no trip across San Juan Potosi was ever really simple. They had to talk with Al Leverett some more, and then tell the whole story to Joseph and Mona, and then gab for a while with the desk clerk at the Seagull Hotel where Charlie had been staying, a guy who turned out to be the brother of one of the local gals who'd been a finalist in the dance marathon.

Ray told Charlie, "You grew up in a hick town, so you know everyone in this burg will have heard by tomorrow how you're lodging with me."

"This isn't Manhattan, that's for sure," Charlie agreed. He set down his suitcase in Ray's living room and looked around before saying to Ray, "But worrying about the neighbors is part of being a homosexual in any place you'd care to live. You've run a pansy club, so you know what kind of existence goes along with the sex. In some ways, the life's worse than that of your former profession."

"All the law-breaking, none of the respect," Ray agreed glumly. "Not that things will be any easier for you. You won't have a badge to wave around anymore."

"True. We'll both need to be careful." He stared at Ray speculatively. "Which is why I'm perfectly happy to masquerade these next few days as an old friend staying at your place, a common enough event, while the first fever is on us."

"You think we'll get tired of each other after that?"

"Don't you?"

Ray considered. "Maybe, maybe not. Likely I should warn you, I always preferred going on with the gals I already knew. I slept safer, and it was easier to talk them into trying something fancy I might actually like."

That surprised Charlie into a crack of laughter. But the laugh died back into a smile that could only be called pleased. "Fair enough. I won't count my chickens before they keel over." Punching Ray gently in the upper shoulder, he added, "So, what do you want to talk me into, guy that I already know?"

Then the realization hit Ray hard: here was Charlie, right next to him and willing to do stuff that Ray had only ever dreamed about. He turned, wrapped his fellow up in his arms, and said, "For starters, how about, this time, you take your clothes off?" Even to his ears, his words sounded hoarse.

Charlie grabbed Ray's waist in turn, and squeezed his arms tight. Then, a grin on his face, he heaved up so hard that Ray was off his feet and up in the air for a moment. When Ray's shoes thudded back onto the rug, Charlie said, "Let go of me, and I will."

As his body was exposed, Ray could see that Charlie was kind of pale, his skin dusted with gold hairs, carrying a little extra load around the waist from being a desk cop, but in pretty good shape overall. He was built to be a sprinter, not a boxer, and didn't have a single visible scar. Ray's brain could inventory these facts, but Ray's gut and cock were too busy heating up. He tried to wait, but Charlie only got to the point of shucking off his trousers and underwear before Ray lost patience.

Ray surged up onto his feet from the couch where he'd been sitting, took three fast steps, and started kissing Charlie's body. He licked and caressed places that he'd never really worried about when he was out with girls. There was so much to explore: arms, legs, face... What was up with the crease where hard thigh muscles ran into Charlie's buttocks, for example? Ray didn't know, but he did figure out that he had to touch the skin there, to run his tongue along that border, to nip at the firmness of Charlie's ass.

"You son of a gun," Charlie said, tone somewhere between laughter and heat. "Come on, Ray, you can't do it all—" The words died off in a gasp when Ray started nuzzling between his legs from behind. Resolutely, Charlie continued. "—not all at once." He stepped away and turned, but Ray had felt him shaking a little.

Looking up at Charlie, Ray said, "I can try."

There was a pause. Charlie's expression twisted around like it didn't know what to be. "Please," he said, "give me a break. I'm going to start talking hearts-and-flowers drivel any second now."

Ray considered. "What the hell. Go right ahead. I'll drivel back."

Those words seemed to focus Charlie. His eyes narrowed, his expression went languid, and the tip of his tongue ran slowly across his lower lip. Reaching down, he took his cock in his hand and stroked it. "Fine. Fuck me up the ass and then we'll indulge ourselves with words." He touched the head of his cock with the forefinger of his free hand before he leaned forward to caress Ray's lips with it. The taste was raw and made Ray hungry.

"How blunt is that? Just kick me in the head, why don't you?" Ray was already up on his feet, marching Charlie towards the bedroom with a hand on his elbow to make sure he didn't get lost on the way.

"Even if that is your idea of a fun time, not until after your own clothes are off."

There were a lot of pauses in the proceedings due to Ray's ignorance, but they didn't seem to matter. Even Charlie's comments about the less-than-helpful contents of Ray's medicine cabinet only led to Ray's discovering how much more fun wrestling someone down was when he was naked and a really good pal. Finally, they came up with some Crisco in the kitchen and made it back onto the bed. When Ray looked down at Charlie's ass while slicking up his cock, the sight was better than he'd ever imagined it could be. "Hell. I'm going to come all over you, here."

Charlie, who'd been on his knees and elbows so that he could work himself while Ray finished getting ready, stopped. "No, you're going to list and describe your current property assets in order of value, with year of purchase and number of employees appended."

They'd gotten through the ballroom, the arcade, and two of the other joints on the boardwalk before Ray said, "Okay." He leaned forward, put one hand on the mattress beside Charlie's chest, and used his other hand to move his cock between Charlie's nice, firm buttocks. With a little exploration, he got himself in place and started to push. "Yeah, okay." There was resistance, relaxation, and tight, slick warmth. "Go on?"

"You'd. Better."

Turned out, if given enough provocation, Ray's bed creaked. And they provoked it, hard and fast. Besides, Charlie never let go of the spindles on the headboard, even as he pushed back hard, issuing instructions in a torn-up voice that was gasoline to Ray's fire. It wasn't that long before Ray dropped his head against Charlie's shoulder, shuddering and gasping, his hips grinding as he came. He had to reach around afterward and fist Charlie's cock to get him coming in his turn. But when Charlie did spend, he made a guttural noise that Ray found he was echoing as if he'd seen Charlie hit a game-winning home run. Maybe he had. Given that this was Ray's first time, the fucking had been great. No, any canoodling with Charlie was all-around great, period.

Still, "That had to hurt," Ray said afterwards. For some reason, when they collapsed together on the bed, this time he was the one who'd ended up with his head parked on Charlie's shoulder. The position was different, but the arm around his shoulders was nice, very nice. Ray felt so relaxed he was even a little sleepy, but that was no excuse not to check.

But he woke up some when Charlie said, "Not as much as you'd imagine. In fact, very little."

"Do you think I'd like it?"

Charlie's eyes rolled sideways, and the corner of his mouth quirked into a grin. "You might. With practice."

"Okay."

His voice lazy, Charlie told him, "If you hadn't worked me over so well, I'd be up and at 'em because of that statement. As it is, give me a few hours, and then we'll take things very slow. In the end, I think you'll be satisfied."

"So, you want to get cleaned up and go eat some seafood in the meantime? They serve good oysters at the place on the pier."

Charlie laughed, delighted. "Very well. As long as you promise not to linger too long when you stop in at the arcade afterwards to see how Friday night is going. I know you businessmen."

"Yeah, you do." Ray smiled up at the ceiling. "As long as the fortune-telling machine stayed fixed, there's nothing to hold me there."

"Put a nickel in the slot, and we'll see."

"What the hell, let's skip." Ray rolled over so he could look into Charlie's eyes. "You, me, a bunch of oysters, and back here again. We really don't need the hanged man."

"I'm not in a mood to be kept hanging, it's true," Charlie said. His expression became grave, even if his eyes kept smiling. "I made myself wait much too long as it is."

"Story's the same over here." Sitting up, Ray shrugged. "That's okay, the marathon's over." He gently grabbed Charlie's shoulder, shook him. "And I have the prize."

"When one finally catches a wanted man, it's always nice to get a reward," Charlie agreed, and pulled Ray down again.

**Author's Note:**

> In terms of historicity, well...
> 
> In case you've never seen or read _They Shoot Horses, Don't They?_ , I couldn't make up the details of dance marathons. The events at the pansy club, nature of this story's cult, and behaviors of the "businessmen" and Bureau are based on documented cases, too. I fear my own, occasional nostalgia for the thirties is triggered by the weed-like persistence of decent behavior and sometimes happy endings even in those circumstances, not by a lost golden age of glamour, a better way of life, and/or superior moral values.
> 
> This story was originally published commercially through a small press, but all rights have reverted to me, where they remain. The usual fandom, not-for-profit permissions apply. Given the obvious fannish influences and tropes, it seemed possible to post it here. I hope you enjoy!


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